Welcome to the Stay or Go podcast, where we're changing the dialogue around divorce so that no woman ever stays in her marriage out of fear. Get ready to dispel myths, learn life-changing tools, and build a solid foundation in yourself from which to make your decision. And now your host, me, Britta Joe. Well, hello. Such a treat today, because for those of you that are listening to this over on Quinn's Podcast, we are teaming up today. So, hello. It's so nice to see all of you over here in Quinn's World. And for those on my podcast, welcome, Quinn. Hi, babe.
SPEAKER_04Thank you. It's about time. It's been several months since we've had one of these really juicy conversations. So I'm excited to be here. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03Oh my God. I know. We have just been in the thick of both of kind of our own tracks producing our own things. And lately, so Quinn and I stay in touch very frequently via the Voxer app, which my clients and your clients know about. That's where we message with our clients. And so we also message each other. And we were noticing recently, you were just bringing up a bunch of stuff about sex and orgasms. And I was like, this is juicy, yummy. I love this. And you had actually just done a podcast episode, right? Like a week ago.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. My last episode that dropped was about the importance of female orgasm, especially as you're going through really stressful situations. And it reminded me of my journey to enjoy my own pleasure and my own orgasms. And it was not an easy road. And if you Britta, do you know what the something called the orgasm gap?
SPEAKER_03Do you know what that is? You know, the only reason I know, and this is guys, this is the benefit of having Quinn as my as my best friend, is Quinn is a wealth of knowledge. This woman is reading, I know, reading, assimilating. Like, I don't know how many books you read a week, but this is where I get so much of my stuff. So we are gonna drop in around that. But I just wanted to say first off, just to prep everybody for this episode before we are off to the races, that today's episode is gonna be very off the cuff, right? We said kind of going into this. Um in in the community, we introduced a couple months ago this intimacy chat format that is very like open, free-flowing. Anything goes, all of it gets to be on the table. And we said we were kind of do gonna do this episode in that way as well. So just I want to prep everybody that we're gonna be all over the place. I I said one of the things I was most excited about was just kind of following the rabbit trails with you wherever they might go. So I love it because Quinn just jumped right in and almost sucked me into that rabbit hole before I could just, I just I'm like, I gotta prep everybody of like just be ready. We're not necessarily gonna be like, here are the huge takeaways, as much as it is a uh an episode to really let us just vibe with them, right? Quinn?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I want to jump in and explain to my audience if you don't know what community she's talking about. Britta Joe has created this beautiful community called the Stay or Go community, where women who are well, some of your women are doing one-on-one coaching plus the community, but the community is a much more affordable place where you get coaching, you get community. There are monthly workshops, you bring in other mentors. It's this very beautiful, safe, and juicy place where women go to be held by other women in this cocoon to make this very important decision about whether to stay or go. Now, that being said, I get to go in there and play as well. And I find that I am the recipient of a lot of beautiful information because it's the decision to stay or go is a big decision, but coming out after divorce, there continues to be a lot of big decisions. Yes. So would you accept people who just want to check out your community and they're already divorced?
SPEAKER_03You know, we actually do have women, you know, that I have a few previous clients in that that are in the community for that exact reason, for wanting to still have connection to women. Oh my God, I love it. We've got fireworks going off in the background of my video right now. What I don't know how you did that. When the fuck did those get turned on in Riverside? Like, I don't know. Okay. I was not gonna walk past that. I was absolutely gonna have to acknowledge that with you right now.
SPEAKER_04Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03So I think the universe is giving us its uh it's like hurrah that yeah, it is a space. I mean, you're in there, like I said, a couple other clients that are actually post-divorce, but you know, we're kind of going through it at the beginning when the community started. And actually today we did a coaching call where one of the women on the on the call was mentioning how much it's helped her to have women ahead of like further down the road that are in the community that she's been reaching out to one-on-one that could be like, oh, this is what it was like when I was going through this part. So yeah, it's this gorgeous overlap. I mean, talk about the most amazing dynamic you and I have that we are best friends, we're both coaches. I coach women considering divorce, and yours is helping them, you know, launch and glow up after words and the community having both of us in it, you know, you do your monthly tarot readings. It's just a really gorgeous overlap in place for both of us. So I love you bringing that up, and absolutely, I think this is a space. Not only is it for women in the deciding and then going through it, but especially if you've come out of it recently. God, it's just so nice to be in a space with a bunch of other women who get it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, who are just like, yeah, they get divorced. Um, and that's really the fun of this episode today is that we're bringing that that energy I think we have in those intimacy chats of just the like fuck it. We get to say what we want, we get to feel how we want to feel. Nobody's having to pretend or put on a front. Like you get to bring all your thoughts, all your feelings about sex, all your questions, all the stuff you wish you could have talked about, right? The episode title, right? The sex talk that we all wish we had, but we weren't supposed to, because it's revolutionary to talk about pleasure and intimacy in the way we're gonna do today and the way we do in those spaces. So fuck yeah. Now that we have gorgeously, by the way, this is this was all foreplay. Is everybody warmed up?
SPEAKER_04Let's go.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, this was the the foreplay part. Um okay, so yes, dive us in for those that have not heard of it, into the orgasm gap.
SPEAKER_04So most of us are familiar with the pay gap, where women make 70 cents on the dollar for what men do for the exact same work. But there's something called the orgasm gap, where they have seen that in heterosexual relationships, men will say that they always or usually orgasm 96% of the time. And you ask the women, and it drops to half of that. And I would argue that it's actually much, much lower, just based on my conversations with my sisters. I have seven sisters, conversations with, and maybe it's just in these really um in the more religious communities where we're not encouraged to seek information. I don't know. But I I think that there are a lot of women who regularly have sex and do not ever climax.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And even I well, I love you saying you think it's less because I also, as you were saying that, I was like, I I thought I was having orgasms. My my thought was like, okay, you may be having quote in orgasm, but are you actually having a quality orgasm? Like when you're a woman, there's a whole range and scale of orgasms and the quality of those orgasms.
SPEAKER_04Do you do you agree with that? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And there's so many factors. I know that for a lot of the men that I've been with, it's very simple to help them climax. And I am a universe unto myself. And there are parts of me that yes, enjoy stimulation, but there are times that impact those parts. You know, how stressed am I? How much foreplay? Am I really vibing with this person? You know, there's so many other factors. Women's sexuality is more contextual. Is she feeling connected? Is this fully consensual? And that's incredibly important. So if you're in a situation where it's like I'm willing to have sex with you, but I don't really want to have sex with you, which is where a lot of women land. It's where I landed in marriage. Yes. And I became a student of the female orgasm because early on.
SPEAKER_03I just have to say, of course you did. This Quinn is, yes, Quinn is such a student at heart. So tell me more about when and how and why you became a student of the orgasm.
SPEAKER_04Okay. So I had premarital sex, Brita, if you can believe it. I know. Scandalous. Scandalous. Okay. With for those that don't know, within Mormonism, there's no sex before marriage. And I did not have sex with my future husband before we got together. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_03Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_04This was with another lover. No, no. Yes, yes. I was 20. I had this lovely lover. And I thought, have sex, have orgasm. Like we we were really into each other. It wasn't a long term, it was less than a year that we we dated and we went our separate ways. But when I married my husband, I was waiting in pause, slow down with me.
SPEAKER_03Because I love I I love this. Wait, because this is like shocking to me. So you you're saying that with this partner in your 20s, you formed this idea having sex equals having an orgasm.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_03So you were having orgasms with this partner in your 20s.
SPEAKER_04Yes. On the regular. Yes. Wow. I can't remember a time. I remember talking to one of my married sisters who at this point, I don't know if she knew that she had a clitoris because I remember that was a really big revelation to her. But I think she already had a child or two, but she hated sex. And I was like, no, sex is great. It's so pleasurable. And she asked me, Have you ever orgasmed? I'm like, Yes. I mean, I've been having sex. Isn't that how it works? Oh my God. With her partner, her husband, that was not how it worked. The case.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. And I I wanted to just get that foundation in there because that kind of blows my mind, right? I I definitely came from a different story of not having sex before I was married. And then when I did have sex when I was married, I was someone who orgasm was not related to sex. It was something that had to be done separate with very specific stimulation. So it um we're just gonna have fireworks this whole, this whole recording. I don't know. I just love that. This is the episode where I was like, we're just gonna vibe it out. This isn't gonna be structured. And someday when this video gets put up on YouTube, because that's what my assistant's working on right now, you will all be able to go watch it on YouTube with the firework effects.
SPEAKER_04Yes, every time we say orgasm, fireworks go off.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god. Oh my god, it's so great. Okay, so so you have this experience in your 20s, and for you, you're like, oh, sex equals orgasm. Those two go together. From there though, you get married. And you went you went back to Mormonism.
SPEAKER_04This Yes, I I repented. I had to go and we're being best.
SPEAKER_03Just so you all know, we are being very facetious when we are talking about like, oh my god, you had sex before you got married, or oh, you repented, thank goodness. This is our facetious, like we actually were just talking about how it's general conference weekend for our for our Mormonslash exmos that listen to this. There's this weekend in Mormonism twice a year where we watch like seriously 10 hours of church broadcasts. It happens to be today, and we are rebelliously recording a podcast about sex instead.
SPEAKER_04Yes, specifically a specific kind of sex, a specific kind that centers the female orgasm or just pleasure, the just female pleasure.
SPEAKER_03Because it doesn't it doesn't have to be an orgasm. Exactly.
SPEAKER_04Pleasure is so important. So yes, I got married, and I remember after having sex on my wedding night, I was so deeply disappointed and sad and kind of beating myself up. Like I got married for this. I got married very quickly, met to married in three months, which is not unusual within Mormonism. And I think that was the same for you, right? Yep, met married in three months. Yeah. So I don't actually know this person. I just knew that we had dated long enough. I wanted to have sex. So you should get married. Yeah, so you get married. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god, Quinn. What? Just have sex.
SPEAKER_03Don't get married. We were in a cult. Okay. So you're like, I think I want to have sex. I'm now Mormon again. I think I want to have sex with this person, which means I need to marry them. You marry, and the sex sounds like it's awful.
SPEAKER_04It's just awful. Awful. But I'm like, I've got to figure this out. Like, this isn't just for this life in Mormonism. This is for eternity. There, and there's no teachings about, well, if you have bad sex in this life, you're gonna have great sex forever.
SPEAKER_03Like, shit, we gotta figure this out now because I just I picked this for eternity and I know this this would be so hard because you actually knew it could be good. I I didn't know it could be good. So when you don't know it can be good and it sucks, you know, innocence is kind of bliss. It's not bliss, but it's much less worse than if you knew it was good. But notice this is so fascinating to me. Your your mental reaction wasn't, oh fuck, I married the wrong person. It's I need to figure this out. Like, wait, take me that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And I think within Mormonism, some of the teachings within Mormonism started to really come to bear because I found out very quickly that my husband was not a man that should be trusted in a lot of areas. But marriage is so important in Mormonism. It is such a foundational, like second-class citizen if you're not married. 100% want to be married. And that the marriage is the most important thing, not the individuals in the marriage. And successful marriages are the ones with longevity, not people being happy, not people liking each other, much less loving each other. No. It's just, are you married? Do you have children? Are you checking these boxes? But it was, it was incredibly unfulfilling. But I I really kept trying. I did not want to have a sexless marriage. I knew I didn't want to be one of those women who used sex as a weapon. Like, if I'm angry with you, I'm not gonna have sex. I was like, yeah, I would never, I would never do that. And so I never lived through a sexless marriage, but I lived through years without pleasure. And it's not to say that it was completely without pleasure, but there was I didn't have an orgasm with my husband for 10 years. 10 years. And I was married to. But when I would bring it up to him and try to teach him, like, can we talk about our sex life? It was really difficult for him because he had that same shaming sort of background from Mormonism about sex. And I was his second wife, not you know, at the same time. So we didn't, we don't have to.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god. I know the fact that you had to be clear, we're we're we're from the Mormons, but not from that specific second of the Mormons. Not that we're judging, because it's all, in our opinion, it's all pretty fucked up. So yeah, but no, his second wife, not at the same time.
SPEAKER_04Yes. There he had one divorce before the one I gave him. But his first wife, he claims his first wife had an orgasm every time they had sex. And I was like, um, I'm pretty sure she didn't. And he's like, no, she did. She did. I would know if she was faking. I'm like, no, if I'm faking. He didn't. Oh, and oh my god. It's just what it was. But his idea was he was fine. Like in his mind, as long as a man has an erection, he's fine. Like the woman should be able to orgasm.
SPEAKER_02And when I think about his sexuality, so wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so literally his understanding of sex orgasm for a woman was as long as my penis is hard and I stick it in you, you should be able. I mean, you just stick the hard thingy in the whole thingy and it works. Yeah, bada bing, bada boom. And I'm getting off every time, so obviously you're not working your hole correctly.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. Exactly. Wow. And this was a farm boy. He was he was not ever um taught about sex from his parents. It was there's the bull, there's the cow, this is how it's done. You climb up on top and he sticks it in and you get a calf. And of course, the cow loves it. And so, you know, I'm the cow in the situation. Oh my god. And then he goes to college and is exposed to pornography, which is very much stick the penis.
SPEAKER_03Male centric women are just, you know, so turned on by your dick, just need voracious. You do not need to invest any foreplay to warm that creature up.
SPEAKER_04No, no, always ready, always ready. Yeah. So I started to dive into books written by urologists, sex therapists. Oh my god, Queen. Try and figure out is There's something wrong with me. And that's when I discovered I'm not the only one that can have an orgasm with certain people and not with other people or in certain situations, not in other situations. That it's part of the magic of being me and this feminine body that I have. It's there's nothing broken. Oof. If the partnership wasn't working.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, let's come back before we of course that's where you landed, because here we are on this podcast, you know, laughing our heads off at like, no, this is not how it is. But going back to, you know, I just want to take a second to dive in to what I think both you and I feel is so heartbreaking, which is that your response, the overarching message that you got was there's something wrong with me. And I feel like that is I I struggled with it myself as well. Definitely. You know, in in my marriage, um, I was never able to orgasm while having penetrative sex. Um, it was always something where it was like, you know, he got off first, and then you know, because I was so programmed by Mormonism to not even like feel like I could touch my body, right? Because masturbation is not okay in Mormonism. Exactly. I'd have to have him touch me to get off. And often it'd be after he'd orgasmed, so he'd be falling asleep. You know, and I'd have to be frustrating. Yeah, well, and just like you're you're trapped in this world where nobody is validating your that you have a right to feel pleasure. There's no support, there's no, um, you know, especially for us, obviously this isn't gonna be everybody's experience, but because we came from such a anti-pleasure, anti-sex religion, there is no support amongst the women in your community for understanding your body, understanding pleasure, understanding. I think, was it your mom? Like, what was your mom's take on sex for you?
SPEAKER_04It was clear early on that she was very uneducated about it. Um, she told me that if I put my hand on a boy's leg, his penis would get hard. And so make sure you don't do that. She gave me a little pamphlet when I was in the ninth grade about masturbation, but it referred to masturbation as self-abuse. And so I didn't know what it was talking about. I didn't know I had a clitoris until I had that first lover who had had lovers before me. And that's where I learned about my own body, my own pleasure. But I was I had several sisters who were married and having children and no orgasms, didn't know that they had a clitoris, didn't know that there are more nerves in the head of a clitoris than in the penis. Like we are made for pleasure. And not just our clitoris, our entire body is made for pleasure to be here fully embodied. And so, and I got the idea very early on and through until the death of my father, which was I think four years ago, that um she did not really enjoy sex. And I don't know if it was didn't enjoy sex or didn't enjoy sex with my father.
SPEAKER_03Because that was and had she had sex with any exactly she hadn't had sex with anybody else. That is also the huge tragedy of purity culture. And and like you said, we were talking about this a little bit earlier, where you were like, oh my god, we both have discussed this whole like what a what a racket. This whole idea of you gotta marry this one dude and stay married to him, and how much that benefits men who have this one way of pleasure that doesn't take that much to figure out. But if you're the complexity of a woman's pleasure of your body, and you happen to get stuck with a partner who doesn't know what he's doing, and we have the whole range of that, right? We have partners who, you know, you got one end of the spectrum, or are men who just don't fucking care. They're like, you, I don't, I don't give a shit about your pleasure. You're here for me. And then you even but you have men on the other end who like are interested and want to, but but then you have to weed through all of the the conditioning like you and I had, right? All of the shame around it, all of the programmed beliefs, all of the just energy dynamics, right? When you have a partner who's unsure or is asking you about your body, but you don't even know about your own body.
SPEAKER_04Right. And for you to take the reins and explore your body is considered a sin within the Mormon temple ceremony. You make these promises that um you wouldn't have sexual relationships with anyone other than the person to whom you are legally and lawfully married. And my dad, he was one of the they call it a bishop, so the head of a congregation. And he told me early on that that promise includes yourself. Like that's like, do not masturbate. You are promising you will not masturbate, you will only do anything sexual with the person to whom you are married. And the only way I got to experience an orgasm with my husband was by getting myself like self-pleasuring and then penetrative sex. And then sometimes I could orgasm with him, which I loved. I loved it so much. The first time I was able to come with him inside me, it was so incredible. But it was work, it was so much work, and it was all on me. All on me. Yeah, yeah, which is weird because I mean, with Mormonism, like you said, they are super shameful about sex, and yet they want people pumping out the babies. Well, guess what, boys? This is how the babies come. But I also learned that other women were suffering as well. I was in several mom groups over the years with very, very faithful Mormon women. And it was in those rooms that they started to talk about how they didn't have orgasms or they were living in sexless marriages because they didn't have the energy, they didn't have the desire, and they saw no need for it, or their husband didn't want to touch them anymore. There's a variety of reasons.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I love you making this point because as you're saying this, I'm like, oh my God, this is what was a huge opening moment for me too, was when I was in a book group of women from my church. And after book group, some nights, it would just, you know, we'd start talking about that stuff. And it was as I started to hear the stories of other women. And in my instance, it was my, you know, my friends in that group being like, oh no, that doesn't sound normal. What do you mean it's like that? Oh, what do you mean it's often really painful? What do you, you know, because I experienced a lot of pain with sex. I realize now that's because I need so much more. My body just naturally has a tightness. And I don't know if that's part of that sexual trauma from childhood, but it is naturally tight and it needs a partner really taking his time with it to soften and be ready for anything to penetrate me. But it was having other women finally letting me peek behind the curtain of their life, which takes me to our, you know, I'm thinking like, yeah, the intimacy chats in the community where you start realizing I'm not alone, I'm not broken. Oh, and there are women out there that are experiencing good sex, and it seems to be like they have different partners, right?
SPEAKER_04What has amazed me in watching the women that you coach is that many of them have affair partners in order to stay in their marriages. It's like it makes their marriage livable because they have someone with whom they can experience what they wish they had in their marriage. Yeah. And I had never seen that aspect before um interacting with some of those women.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And just uh same what a gift the doing the work I do because I have now really seen for myself and and been able to realize like and change that belief around like, oh, this is just an extra. Like, you know, Mormonism taught me sex is an extra. It's or you know, and not sex, pleasure, orgasms, they're an extra. I now for myself live from a belief of like oh no no, this is like the top two for me of favorite parts of being in a human body. Like, if I'm gonna have to go through all that's entailed in being a human in this life, I mean, there's a lot of shit we all have to go through. There's stress, there's all the pieces. Yeah. I sure as hell want this section of my life one of the juiciest, most enjoyable parts. And that's really, as you know, that's why I left my marriage. Because it was like, I want to, you know, I did not, in my instance, have an affair partner. And actually, I would say, you know, a little bit different from yours. I thought sex was pretty good in my marriage. I've said this before on the podcast. I just know now, in comparison, like holy so much. Right, like whole different universe. Like, you know, spent your whole life living in a country, not realizing there was an entire world out there, and then traveling the world and being like, oh my God. And and instead of making that seem like in religion, like a bad thing, right? I think religion really paints pleasure as sin and you need to avoid the things you desire. It's bad of you to want to travel the world, being like, uh no, fuck you. I'm taking my passport back, and I am reclaiming my right to my own body and my pleasure and my desire and getting to center that as one of the most important experiences of my life.
SPEAKER_04Yes, yes. And I think a lot of women post-divorce, they're really nervous about having a new sexual partner. And I would just like to say that partner is also probably nervous. And that's okay. It's just part of being human and experiencing all of these different things. But one of the things that I really love at the age I am, so I'm 53, that when I came out into the world of dating, and I was just so excited to taste the 31 flavors. And I remember being surprised at the amount of erectile dysfunction. And at first I was like, womp womp, because I couldn't have the kind of sex that I thought I wanted.
SPEAKER_03That you had been trained to believe, right? It's gotta have a hard dick for it to be good.
SPEAKER_04Yes, yes. But what I found this early-on lover, he because I I found that in my marriage, there were times where I just wanted to get through it so I could go to sleep or get through it so he's done, so I could take care of myself. But I found that there was this, there was this lover, and I remember making out with him and like moving it on quickly towards the process of penetration, and he's like, let's just stay right here. There's no place we have to go. And just slowing me way, way down. And just slowing down is so pleasurable, especially in a world where women have to go, go, go, or take care of the kids, or take care of the spouse, or take care of the house. Like there's overfunction. Yes. So to have a partner who's like, okay, we're gonna put on some lo-fi and we're just going to touch each other and explore. And I'm like, we can do this, and you're not upset that we're not getting to the penetration. For real. Yeah. Like, and older men in the age range that I'm dating, they've got a few decades of life, and their penises don't work like they did in their 20s. And that's great because then now they're centering my pleasure. They're looking for all the ways that they can pleasure a woman, at least in my experience, rather than oh, hard dick in hole. It's like, what else can I do? How else can I love you? How else can I pleasure you? What sounds fun to you? My most recent lover, he was so great at wanting to continue to educate himself or to try new toys or look up different kinks. Do you want to try this? What would you be comfortable with? Let's both fill out this questionnaire and see where we match and just be so playful. Like it doesn't have to be so fucking serious.
SPEAKER_03This is something was so serious. So serious. And something I have loved about you from the beginning that's always been a little different. I still am like very romantic about sex and very well. And I always loved your just like you would tell me you would like burst out laughing in the middle of something.
SPEAKER_04Oh, for sure. For sure. I think sex is hilarious. The noises, the sounds, the facial expressions. I think it's hilarious. And so, yes, and sometimes I will just laugh with delight at the pleasure or the surprise when he pulls out a belt and I'm like, oh my gosh, I didn't see that coming.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, which is not the case when you are with partners who are insecure about performance. Yes. Because if you don't fake it correctly, if you at all, I mean, when you talked about having to kind of hang in there during sex, I remember that being a thing for me. And even post being married sex, I definitely had partners that I just that's what I knew was, you know, okay, he's getting close. I'm starting to get raw. This isn't feeling all that great, but I'm definitely not gonna stop now. I'm not gonna stop him now, right? Before he's gonna come. I'm just gonna grit my teeth and hang in there until he finishes. And what, and this is making me think too, and we'll talk about this a little bit later when we dive into this book, but that point you made, the book you're gonna share later, what is it called? It's like the tragedy of heterosexuality. There we go. Where she says women become complicit in their own abuse, in their own orgasm gaps because we participate in forcing ourselves to tolerate that, to not um, or even, you know, just staying with partners who are less than what we want most when it comes to someone sexually.
SPEAKER_04Yes. I think it's fascinating when you look on Reddit and there are these forums where you can say, what makes someone good in bed, or what makes someone bad in bed? And so there was this forum where it was, what does a man mean by bad sex if you had bad sex with a partner? And for the man, it was, well, she didn't initiate, she wasn't really into it. She she just laid there, and that's bad sex for a man. You ask the women, what is bad sex for you? And they're talking about pain, they're talking about non-consent, they're talking about fucking abuse. And yet, do you leave those partners? I would argue that it would be a good idea to consider.
SPEAKER_03Yes, and that most of us don't because we have been programmed to believe the problem is me. Yeah. You know, I thought for years the problem, the the reason I was having pain was because there must be I must have a tiny vagina. I must just uh I know now that is bullshit.
SPEAKER_04That's because your ex had a huge dick. That was the problem. Plus your tiny vagina.
SPEAKER_03Exactly, right? That's what the patriarchy would tell me. It's because I have such a big dick. I'm sorry. No, the problem is that you don't understand, and nor do I, how my body works and the level of warming up that machine before we get to that point because of the lack of education. The all of the myths, there's still so many myths around sex for most of us. Which is let's which will just take us. I think we should just jump straight into it. Which takes me to that book, The Tragedy of Heterosexuality that you mentioned to me this week. Tell t take us, dive us in. This book kind of blew my mind. We haven't read it yet, but you read an article on it, right?
SPEAKER_04Yes, it's an article, and I want to tell you guys exactly what it is. In case you have Apple Newsfeed, you'll be able to read it. But it was from New York magazine, and it's called Do Straight Women Really Exist? And it was talking about this woman who wrote the book that we talked about, the tragedy of heterosexuality and women being complicit in the situation.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, which is Jane Ward, by the way. That's her name. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And she is teaching a class on how to be good allies to heterosexuals because, especially heterosexual women, because of how bad our life sucks with the amount of emotional labor in being partnered with a man, the amount of physical labor, the orgasm gap, the lack of alignment in our values, and how us staying and us not negotiating. So she's not arguing for everyone needs to just be having sex, women need to be having sex with other women. It's that we need to really examine the beliefs, the underlying assumptions that we're coming into the relationship with and asking, is this what I want? I definitely had the idea that men need sex. Men needs a orgasms.
SPEAKER_03Yes. But if you don't give it to them, they become mean.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Yes. And they'll go find someone else to have sex with. Like, oh, she let herself go. He wanted to go find someone else to have sex with. He he traded for a younger sexual partner. You know, that's just part of our collective psyche and our culture. But for the woman, like, I didn't see my pleasure as being important, as being. Necessary for my functioning, but it absolutely is. All part of that. Orgasms and pleasure are absolutely necessary for our health, for our well-being.
SPEAKER_03All part of that myth. Right. I think that other book, the the one that you which one is it? Yeah, hold it up. What is that one? Vitamin O. There we go. Vitamin O. That's where you're getting those ideas, right? That orgasm is absolutely vital for women's health. That is another myth that we don't need them. That you or even the idea that you're broken if you can't have them, or it's so complicated. And when you're with a partner who can't figure it out, well, I just must be super complicated. And yet then you go meet a partner who knows what the fuck he's doing, and you're like, wow, I seem to be really uncomplicated. In fact, he's kind of like, wow, 10 orgasms later. I don't seem to be too complicated for this one. Right? Yeah. So what's really going on there? Layers and layers of myth. And I wanted to mention when you said, you know, so in the book, I love that she comes from this idea where she's saying, like, we need support groups for heterosexual women. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04More and more of us are talking about the challenges. I mean, we were given the fairy tale, be the one that's chosen. You know, you get your wedding day, and then it's happily ever after. And so many of us are calling bullshit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And I I was I was reading kind of a synopsis on it. And I loved that it said that how she does that is she draws from the queer perspectives. And she's saying, like, in queer culture, often mutual respect is emphasized, open communication and these like egalitarian dynamics within the relationship. And so, you know, it like you said, just not that she's saying women need to be with women, but she's saying in queer relationships, you are getting a much higher standard of egalitarian treatment and prioritization of your pleasure as well. That if you're in a heteronormative relationship with a man, you could severely be like far below. And the majority of the women that you and I work with, I know the you know, the women listening to this get that. A lot of you are like, yeah, I haven't had good sex in years. I I haven't been having sex. I have a I have clients right now who haven't had sex with their husband in like four plus years. Oh my God. Yeah, this is this is the myth, the the idea, right? And who not only are not having either they're not having good sex or they're not having sex at all in their marriage and are terrified that if they leave, there will be nothing else out there either. That is the myth that, like, yeah, oh, just be content with what you got because you're so complex and broken, no one out there will know how to work you or help you figure it out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I mean, there is that sunk cost fallacy where I've invested so much in helping my partner learn about my pleasure, and I don't want to start over teaching someone else. And I get that. Oh my gosh, down to my core, I get that. Because I saw that my partner, my husband, he was not interested in trying to learn. Now, to his credit, I mean, I think there was a part of him that wanted to, but he had so much shame and so much of his own work that he was not willing to look at. That I mean, just talking to him about sex was excruciating, just excruciating. You could see the little boy in him come up that was so afraid of doing something wrong, and I'm not man enough, and you know, real men should be able to pleasure their partner or whatever. And then the church, and I mean, there's just so much there to unpack. And he just wasn't in a place to unpack that.
SPEAKER_03And that is that baggage. That is the tr exactly, not everybody has that baggage. That is the like one of the biggest takeaways that I think you and I have both learned coming out of our marriages. Uh understanding the tragedy of patriarchy, right? Which is patriarchy has fucked up sex. And then when you mix patriarchy with religion, oh my God. Just like, no, no, no, no, I can't. Um it because you know, on the flip side, I I experienced a lot of that too. I would say I had a partner when in my marriage who was, especially towards the end, very eager and wanted to figure that out with me. But it's the whole how much trauma and programming are we dealing with in each person combined with all the shit we've already been through in this marriage where we were just kind of knocking around and tearing each other up because we didn't know what we were doing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And and then when you try to go into a place that is as vulnerable as I'm letting you into my body, right? I I feel so much gratitude that I just finally was like, I'm hanging up the towel. I I even have a willing partner, somebody who's like, help me figure it out. And I am so, there's too much water under the bridge for me to truly be able to psychologically drop down and feel safe enough. And I know that now because with my current partner, where you know, we could start from a fresh relationship and we could build that trust bit by bit. And he is someone who already has, you know, all of the experience of decades and decades and decades of relationships and learning and investing and figuring it out with other women. Oh my God, just have to like side note. This makes me think Dua Lipa has a song called Maria. And I love it because it's all about her saying basically to this woman Maria, who was her partner's previous partner, thank you. Like he is who he is because of you. And so this gratitude for all of the women that were part of my partner's previous experiences that now, right? Like, what a radically different viewpoint from what we were raised in Mormonism, which is like, ooh, you had sex before marriage. Ooh, you're not the only person I've had sex with. Man, if somebody were to tell me I was their first, I'd be like, ooh, right? Yeah. Now, now I'm like, mm, it's uh it's gonna be a no, it's a hard pass for me. It's gonna be a hard pass for me. It's a little bit too much work. I'm kind of enjoying not having to train anybody at this point.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04One of the things in the book that I think is interesting is her point that oftentimes when a system does not work or a product does not work in a capitalist society, we let it fail. We let it go bankrupt. We don't keep doing it. Now, we keep doing heterosexual, bad sex marriages in large part because of our tradition of doing it during a time when my own mother, when she gave birth to me in 1971, she did not have the right to get her own bank account without her husband's signature. I've had extensive conversations with her about why she stayed with my father, and he was a good guy, but I do not believe that they were in love with each other or that it was a good partnership, but they had 10 kids of it, which you know gets you into, you know, highest level of Mormon heaven. And so I look at these past traditions that we have of women putting up with so much pain and so much bullshit and truly, truly being trapped. And we have that collective generational trauma of women not being heard, being used as property. You're just a help meet, you're not an actual person. He's not interested in knowing you. He's just interested in having sex with a female body. And so now we are the generation that has more choices. And I'm not saying these are easy choices, that obviously now you should leave your partner. I'm not saying that, but we have different perspectives on what a relationship could look like, in large part because of the queer community, because we're seeing that, oh, you can be in a romantic partnership, you can have a marriage, you can have children, and it doesn't have to look like this.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04The way we have defined it in heterosexual marriage.
SPEAKER_03This is this is the gift of Glenn and Doyle. I mean, you know, this is a gift of so many people, but the the person that comes to mind at the forefront of that for me is Glenn and Doyle and Untamed. I mean, that anthem of not only am I going to step away from being the, you know, golden child Christian, pretending like everything's great, brainwashing myself into staying while things are actually really bad, but saying, I'm gonna trust myself and I'm gonna trust myself so much to go after a relationship with a woman that I love and completely change the narrative around my entire life and how inspiring that is for everybody who reads that book. It is the anthem of letting go of these myths of what should make you happy, right? And really actually being honest of I am in this marriage that looks this way. Am I actually happy? If not, what am I what am I gonna do about it?
SPEAKER_04Yes. What are you going to do about it? You don't have to do nothing. You have choices. We have choices. And I think one of the important ways to find people, because I think community is the way to start making different choices. As we see other women make a different choice, like Glenn and the women who go to your podcast and go to your community and go, oh my God, I'm not alone. Yeah. Or people looking at me and going, you have kids and you're in school and you have great sex, like and you have lovers. It's possible. And like, yes, yes, it's possible. Yeah. But I didn't start here, but it's possible. And to show what's possible, it's it's part of the magic, just to know that whatever you're dealing with, if it's not to your liking, babe, are 31 flavors. You don't always have to eat vanilla. I mean, you can. Yeah, and Rocky Road's fun too.
SPEAKER_03This is the biggest, I think this was like the heart of what we were really feeling with this episode was wanting to be a voice for updating. Cause it feels like a lot of us in in marriages that are sexless or without pleasure or desire, or in marriages where you're having sex, but it is more about, you know, keeping him well oiled and not so grumpy and just hanging in there through it. It's waking up to this is generational trauma being enacted out in your life right now. And does it actually match the reality of you as an adult? Because there are a lot of women that I meet now. You know, you and I were a little bit different because man, we got fucked over by that cult that did not teach us to be anything other than stay-at-home moms. But there are a lot of women now that have careers, that have jobs, that can actually safely leave and still have a home over their head and still have the things they need. It doesn't mean you have to have that, because you and I both taken the other route, right? Even without that finding a way, being like, I want this so bad, whatever it is, because we didn't even know what it was at that point. Like, fuck yeah, us. Right? We had literally no one at that point to look to saying, babe, you deserve this. At least I hadn't. I hadn't found a voice like that. We just trekked off into the wilderness. And now that we're at her, we're like, oh my God, it's so much better.
SPEAKER_04So much better.
unknownSo much better.
SPEAKER_03But the re the reality, it's kind of like my episode last week was all about this when we start living our lives from past internal trauma and acting from that instead of really what is the reality in front of me. And the reality for so many of these women, Quinn, right? I mean, so many of the women I meet, I'm like, oh my God, they are brilliant. They are gorgeous. I can't tell you how many women are like, I'm too old. And I'm like, home. Right? Stop.
SPEAKER_04Stop.
SPEAKER_02Stop.
SPEAKER_04Like sex and menopause is so great. You're not worried about pregnancy, number one. Oh my god. And your pleasure. And and you can pull from any, like if you want to be popping the cherry of virgins, like if that is your thing, you can. Yes. That sounds terrible, but you'd like to have someone that is, you know, just a friend with benefits. Like everything is available to you, even remarried if that's what you want. It really is all available. And some really good guys, you know. I don't think they're all terrible. Some really great guys, right?
SPEAKER_03I I I truly believe looking back at our dating experiences. We this goes back to the whole, you know, you're gonna hear people get divorced and talk about how awful it is. People date after divorce and talk about how awful it is. I got divorced, I fucking loved it. I dated post-divorce, I fucking loved it. So yes. So you guys know a lot of that comes from coaching yourself and managing your brain and getting the resources to, you know, handle the attachment things that come up. It's this gorgeous journey of I think why we had such a good time is because you and I weren't out hunting for the guy.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03We were more for the experiences. Like, I don't know what I like. I don't know. And exactly, got to date some really young ones, got to have some sex that was like, not gonna do that again. Dated a guy who his friends called him tuna can, and I was like, my vagina has had enough. It can't breathe. Do you remember that? You remember that, Gwen. That was my very small penis.
SPEAKER_04Like the really small pen.
SPEAKER_03With the with the really, yes, it was not long, it was just super wide. It was wide. He had a lot of whips. So wide, my vulva was like, No.
SPEAKER_04Not gonna do that again.
SPEAKER_03Never went back there, never tried that again. I was like, that flavor has been blacklisted.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no tuna.
SPEAKER_03We're not no, no tuna. So, but but what was gorgeous about it is you and I took it on as a way to shed the programming. That gorgeous energy of like, this is my life, and I'm here to show up, and it's gonna be messy and it's gonna be weird. There's gonna be tuna cans, there's gonna be, you know, moments where I look back and I'm like, oh, I don't know if I'd do that again, but we can talk that one up to experience.
SPEAKER_04Right? To do those things and to know I am safe. I am safe because women get so many horror stories about dating and diseases and murders. But guess what? If you got divorced, you are now away from the man who's most likely to murder you. So congratulations.
SPEAKER_03Statistically, exactly. Statistically, you are actually safer. Statistically, it's crazy when we think about it that way. And I would offer, you know, in a lot of ways, this is what she's talking about with us being trained towards heterosexual marriages, is we think we're staying in a place that's quote safer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But what she lays out is you could, you know, like you have on the podcast previously, where you said marriage knocks off years from a woman's life. You are doing all this emotional labor potentially for your partner that you just don't even understand because you've never experienced something else.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you've never had the equality in the relationship for most of us. You've just assumed the position and just continued to swallow and swallow, and let's let's shut the mouth, let's stop swallowing.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04We do have choice. But you said something really interesting about how when you got divorced in your dating process, you didn't know what you wanted, what you liked. And I think that's very common for women coming out of a marriage, but also just women in midlife or at any point to just be like, we've been told what we're supposed to like. We've been told to dress this way and to look this way and be chosen and all of these things. And to come out the other side and go, I don't even know myself. How can I expect a partner to know me when I don't even know myself? Which brings me to this fabulous TV show that I want to talk about. Can we talk about that?
SPEAKER_03Yes, please. I haven't even watched it yet, y'all. But Quinn talking about it, I and I went and watched the trailer just before. I'm the trailer alone. I was like squealing with joy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's an FX series called Dying for Sex. It's streaming on Hulu, is where I found it. And this woman, she had breast cancer and it was in remission. She's married, but she's in this sexless marriage where her husband doesn't want to touch her. She really wants to have sex with him. She's trying to have sex with him, but every time he touches her breasts, he cries and loses his erection. And so when they are sitting in couples therapy, she gets a phone call finding out her cancer has come back, metastasized. It's in her bones. She's gonna die sooner than later. And she's speaking to a counselor and says, I haven't even had an orgasm with another person in my entire life. And the girl's like, Okay, that's something for your bucket list. I love that part. She starts exploring. She doesn't get divorced, um, she knows she's gonna die. But the the female friendship is so beautiful. Her imagination, her desires, the things she's willing to try because she knows she's going to die. And the thing is, whether you believe this is the life then that you will die and then go on to eternity to live as a eunuch praising God, or if you get multiple lifetimes, all we know for sure is that you have this life. And we don't know how much of it. Don't fucking waste it. You don't have to. Like, uh, what if we knew? What if you knew? I've got one more week, and I want to experience, I want to feel because this character in this TV show, she wants to feel instead of her husband talking to the doctor and arranging her care. She's like, No, no, I want to decide. I want to be the liver of my life. I want to be the one that is alive. And that's what I want for women post-divorce is for them to come alive. They've taken one of the hardest steps by ending a relationship that is really important in our society. Going it on their own. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Holy shit is there. Right. Like absolutely, Quinn. You and I have lived more life post-divorce than I ever lived in all the years before.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Like, without a doubt. And I love you bringing up, I just I realized like this is really the theme. Sex, pleasure, desire. Because sex, when it's really good, that is that is like some of the heights of aliveness. Yeah. Oneness, of being present and actually in your body. And so I really do see this as this like really gorgeous golden thread that really unites the whole journey of considering divorce, actually getting divorced, and then post-divorce, like it never goes away. The importance of this thread. Like this is Eros, this is life, force, energy that we seem to be able to tap into at the deepest depths when we are eliciting orgasms or pleasure in our body. But ultimately, you know, the vitamin effect of orgasms for me is that I feel more alive in my daily life. And I show up more myself, connected into pleasure.
SPEAKER_04Yes. And something that orgasm does for women is that it shuts down your fear centers. And so many women, considering divorce and post-divorce, are in so much fear about finances, their kids, their health, what happens if or when. And so a regular practice of pleasure and orgasm. I mean, I don't want to, I know that there are some women who really struggle with orgasming. So I don't want you to deny yourself pleasure if orgasm is off the table for you. Yeah. But if you can reach orgasm or if you're willing to be really curious about it, because maybe you think you're asexual, and you know, I'm currently self-partnered. And so it's given me a chance to sink back into my own self-pleasuring. Yeah. What does that look like? Falling in love with the creature that I am, this person that I am. It it's such a beautiful journey. It doesn't have to be with a partner, it doesn't have to be orgasm, but I think there are some particular benefits for the women we speak to of regularly orgasming. But that being said, I want to share another statistic with you. 50% of adult women are ashamed to touch their own bodies. Yeah. Do you think that's high or low? Or do you think that's about right?
SPEAKER_03I mean, it's so hard for me to ever give my because I we come from such a heavy cultural religion. 100% Mormons. Yeah. 100% Mormons are like, no, I'm not touching myself. Don't not touching. Because I'm a good girl. I was a really good girl. You know, quote, good, good girl growing up did not touch myself. It's heavily, heavily shamed. So no, I'm not surpr I'm not surprised that half of most women. I mean, while you were talking about this, it really took me back to our workshop last month with Renel Chapman and and that resource now, it's beautiful. We have it in the community as exclusive content, but her whole focus of that workshop was discussing understanding those different erotic energies in your body and connecting into self-pleasure with you. Like, and and here's the thing too the I this is a rabbit hole. I've got to go down with you. Okay. Which is I don't know about you, but growing up, and especially in my marriage, like vibrators and toys were like taboo no-nos. If you needed those and your husband's dick wasn't enough, shame on you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So much shame. So much shame.
SPEAKER_03So much, so much shame. So when I had, you know, even I mean, I would say my Joe, Joe is the one that was really like, why don't we start using other things? And I remember being like, okay. Because I had used those a lot on my own. Some. I'd used them some post-divorce, but I did not have partners that I had sex with post-divorce that were like, grab your vibrator, you know? Like, let's I had I really did not run into any partners that understood and were that focused on my pleasure. Like, yes, I had good sex post-divorce, but thank God, as you will attest, Quinn, that I in each relationship didn't stop there, that I kept trusting where life was leading me as it led me into more and more and greater and greater alignment with a partner who now I love that there is no, he has no ego around how my pleasure comes and that it has to come from him.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Right? Like the pleasure is the center, which kind of, you know, it's kind of blowing my mind how we stay in marriages without pleasure because the marriage is centered. Like the people aren't necessarily important, just the marriage is centered, coming to more alignment with ourselves, our values, our partners, to where our pleasure is centered. And it makes for a richer life, it makes for richer relationships, deeper crust, more embodiment to where all of life, it's like you go from black and white to technicolor.
SPEAKER_03Oh my God. Yes. Absolute technicolor. It it just can't. I I'm so glad that we're talking so openly about this because the world we came from, yeah, we had no idea that there that level even existed.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, that you really could end up in a space and I think we're incredible examples of it because we came from such heavily shut down, not in your body, don't touch your body.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03To now you can feel it in the way we talk about it. Like sex is uh it's my favorite thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's it's I feel like it's my birthright to have pleasure.
SPEAKER_03In the way I work. Exactly. And I that is the gift of going on, like you said, in this this Hulu show. I'm sure I haven't seen it yet, but it the the difficulty, right? The pushback, the people who don't get it, the people who don't understand it, like nobody is gonna get this, really. No, I don't think thankfully, you know, my parents aren't in my life anymore. But I don't think my parents or my siblings are would really get me being like the pleasure and having a partner that I have incredible sex with is like number one on my list if I'm choosing a partner. If I if that's not possible, I'm not gonna be in a partnership.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. It's not all about love or this person is a good guy, bad guy. It's like, does it work? Like you might be married or dating or you know, partnered with a quote unquote good guy. Good person cares about your pleasure, and it still just might not work. Nope. And it's not a commentary on either one of you. It's not all male, all female, line them up, put them together, it all works. It just doesn't work like that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. And when it doesn't work, being willing to say, I'm not going to settle. This is an area that's important enough in my life. And of course, there's all the variables, you know, because I'm thinking we have a lot of women in the community whose affair partners they're having banging sex with, right? The intimacy is off the charts, but there's not all the other pieces. So that's that's that part of understanding and like you said, centering your life, your pleasure. I mean, that was really the relationship before I met Joe, right? I was having great sex with that. The, you know, I had to put great sex in air quotes around all of these previous partners because now compared to the sex I have now, it's it's we're not even in the same category. But at the time, it was the best sex I'd ever had. And I really didn't want to let that go. And I was allowing, you know, abusive dynamics to stay in that relationship because I was afraid of it never being that good again. Yes, yes, remember? And thankfully, it was you helping me through that process of really trusting, coming back to that trust of like I can have both. I can have really great sex, intimacy with a partner, and someone that is securely attached and safe for me to be with. And thank fucking God I did because that's the whole when you approach life not from a scarcity mindset of oh, there won't be something out there, but you really trust what we saw with me over and over was like, okay, we go to the next door and there's something even better, and we go to the next door and there's something even better. Like, I really didn't settle. And I we're not even gonna touch on this in this episode, but it makes me think too, you know, we've been talking about sex intimacy a lot through partnership, but I've even been, you know, there's a book called The Ethical Slut that I've been reading that has been expanding my ideas around, you know, you don't even have to have sex within a partnership. Like, yeah, there are all kinds of ways for you to experience intimacy and pleasure when you have a foundation of self-trust and centering yourself and having the skills and the resources to communicate. Mm-hmm.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04I do think it helps to have a coach in your ear. Because I think that one of the reasons we had such good experiences when we started dating is that we had regular coaching. Because the brain, especially if we think, oh, this needs to go towards marriage, or this person is or all of the judgments that go on, all the chatter. So it's helpful to have a coach. And I also wanted to say that if you're staying with a good guy, but you're not, you really don't want to, but you're staying thinking, well, you know, I don't think it's gonna get better than this. That is so fucking selfish of you. Because there are people that would probably be a great match for him that don't cock block him and his future partner. Like, let him go, cut him free, let him go pleasure some other women, learn some things. And it reminds me of, you know, sometimes our kids can't hear what we're saying, and it takes somebody else telling them, and then they come back to us and they're like, oh, I heard this brilliant thought, mom. And it's like that for lessons that I learn as well, that I wasn't open to learning with other partners. But then as partners come in, slow down, or another partner, let's play, another partner, what are your kings? You know, you get to explore with different partners. And it's so beautiful to expand your life in this way. And it's okay if the waves of like even as I'm saying this, in the back of my mind is like, oh my gosh, I have nine siblings and my mom who are still alive. I wonder if they're gonna listen to this. And I have my Mormon friends. Just because I say I've dealt with a lot of my shame, I still have those voices that get to come up. And now they're like clouds in the sky where it's like, oh yeah, I see you. Bye-bye. I don't have to hold on to it and internalize it and swallow it, swallow that poison. I get to just spit it out. And, you know, but you know, sometimes I I do like to swallow.
SPEAKER_02I saw you. I knew where you were going with that one.
SPEAKER_03I so as you were talking about that, I really what it struck for me was, you know, you saying, like, you know, not cock blocking, right? And it touched me so much because I realized, you know, it's the flip side for me. In my ex-husband, you know, in us getting divorced and letting that end, in in a lot of ways, exactly. He was a good guy willing, but I couldn't do it with him for some reason. I don't even, I can't even tell you now. I couldn't fully define, I could go on and on about trying to figure it out. But the reality was it just wasn't gonna happen. And in this partnership with Joe, as you know, Quinn, the level of like the dynamics for us, the way he just fits me psychologically, emotionally, mentally, and physically, um, allowed me, you know, in our relationship, we had factors that prevented us from connecting physically, sexually in the way I'd been doing post-divorce, you know, I'd say the predominant amount of pleasure and sex I had post-divorce was absolutely heteronormative. Like his pleasure is centered. Um, a lot of guys that would talk about how much they cared about my pleasure, but when it really came down to it, like you give me oral for maybe a minute, and then all of a sudden you're up and in me, and I just don't don't know any better. So lots of overpromising talking about how much uh oh, I love making my partner's orgasm. And then when it really came down to it, it was just like, oh, okay, well, cool. I guess I guess that was it. I guess that was and I didn't know and I didn't know any better. And so I just learned to, I just accommodated. I got really good at liking being fucked just really hard and really fast.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because it's sensational. So at least you're feeling something.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Like it can kind of and and when you say it, you know, it would knock me kind of out of my head, and I'd be able to like be present in the moment. But so I started dating Joe, and that option's not available. It was not available. And you remember I had a lot of brain drama about this.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03In in the beginning. I especially because the abusive relationship I'd left the year before, that was what had kept me in it. Was this, you know, aggressive, kind of hard, heteronormative sex that I thought I really liked at the time. Yeah. But what a gift it was. And it was a huge part of it was you coaching me and helping me process, right? The feelings of like, this is so different. I'm uncomfortable. And the reason I was uncomfortable was because my pleasure was being centered. Yes. And I didn't know how to slow down and drop into my body, right? I think so much of that same moment for you when that guy was like, let's just stay right here. You know, Joe'd be like, let's just stay right here. And I'd be like, No, no, no. I know, I know.
SPEAKER_04Like, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
SPEAKER_03What do I do? What do I do? And thank goodness he just had the grounding in him to not, you know, to and he was so gentle and so just the way he eased me in and knew and knew all the different flavors, right? He understood more of energetic sex, more of kinky kind of mental psychological aspects of pleasure and sex. So he started introducing me to all these other ways that lit up my body. And I learned it was like learning a whole bunch of other languages, right? At first it felt really awkward because it's like, uh, we can't speak English to each other. Well, what are we gonna do then? You know, we can't just do the heteronormative, like the pleasure is focused on you, and I understand you're turned on because I can read the signals. Like the signals were different, everything was different. And oh my God, what a gift that was because it forced me, you know, I'm putting that in air quotes, just by the nature of things, to have to go to a different experience, to have to sit in the discomfort and thank God I had with him a partner that I felt safe enough. There was enough, there was, you know, no water under the under the bridge, there was that mutual trust. That was the experiences that we'd had together to allow myself to open my body. And now, over a year later, like holy shit is sex on a different planet for me now.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. You didn't even know it was available. No, and you wouldn't know unless you had trusted yourself and trusted your journey from that very first time where you decided I'm going to file, I'm gonna take this step, not knowing what was ahead of you. Absolutely. And letting life live through you. So proud of you, being.
SPEAKER_03I know, right, babe. That leads me to my final question for you at the end of this, which is really taking a second to share how much your life has changed as you have centered your desires, your orgasm, your pleasure in sex.
SPEAKER_04It's made it more clear on my goals for my life because life gets to be orgasmic. Life gets to be pleasurable. Now I definitely have my self-pleasuring time where I center connection with my body, and I love that time. And it's so much more than that, because it's not the it's not just the that blooming within my body of the orgasm. It's that that blooming happens throughout my day because I have learned to trust myself and that my pleasure is a guide, it's a compass. That you know how sometimes you're having sex and it's like it's on that edge of pleasure and pain. So I'm not saying that everything in my life is like the the orgasmic pleasure, but there's this like that hard edge.
SPEAKER_03Alive no Wow.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Alive. Like I'm feeling it. Like when you're lifting the heavy weights, when I'm putting in the time to accomplish my goals. That also feels very pleasurable to me. And so it's not just all romance and soft touches. Sometimes in the world, sometimes it's really a rap. A little bit of a spank from life. And I'm here for all of it. Like I've expanded my ability to feel everything. Because it's not about feeling good. It's about feeling everything. And when you expand yourself to be able to feel everything, all of life becomes pleasure because all of life is so sensational when we let it be.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So what about you, Breta?
SPEAKER_03Before I share mine, I just want to and I want to check in and say, I think the key to you going on that journey, right? I thought of these two things was that you were able to do that because you got out of the trauma.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Right. I I realized too, as you were sharing it, I was like, and when you talk about that second piece, right? Of like getting into a personal practice with yourself, that really only started for me when I had my own space. Yes. And my own time where I did not have children with me. For me, you know, I know you have your kiddos at home, but you just having a home that is your own, where there is not a partner that you are expected to be sexual with, or that is commenting on your body, or that is pressuring you, or that is angry at you because you're not, or I don't think that can be um stated enough. How difficult. Like I don't want anybody to think, yeah, and this is totally doable when you're in an environment where you're being re-traumatized and your CPTSD is flaring up and your emotional flashbacks are around all the time. That was a huge foundational piece for both of us was safety.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Eliminating the the trigger, the person that's triggering a lot of trauma responses.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Yes. Yeah. Um for me, you know, what has it done for my life centering my desires and my pleasure?
SPEAKER_02What hasn't it done?
SPEAKER_03Right. Like here I am on a podcast. Like that is the engine for me. Um, it is it's made me really unfuckwithable. Like when you are a well-pleasured woman who believes I get to desire whatever the fuck I want, you move through the world differently. And that is my favorite thing about it is I get to live every day of my life with this essence of me that is like, yeah, I fuck yeah, I deserve to exist. Fuck yeah, this is my life. Fuck yeah, I will have what I want. I get to feel good. I get to, you know, on the weekends with my partner when my kids aren't here, spend the whole day just giving it's it's like I finally get to be an adult.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Oh yes, yes. Yeah. I love that. Yes, because when we keep sex in a box, something that is so, I mean, within Mormonism, they would say it's sacred, it's not secret.
SPEAKER_02But that's why we're all not gonna talk about it. Oh my God. I know. You remember that? Yes, I do.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. It doesn't allow us to grow up, and we continue to be infantilized within the relationship of the marriage in heteronormative sexual relationships where it's not like our pleasure isn't important unless you're into that. Like if you're into that, then lean into you know, not having your pleasure centered.
SPEAKER_03But just know if you're really if you're really hitting hard on the trad wife trend. I want to offer this may not be the podcast for you.
SPEAKER_04May not be. May not be.
SPEAKER_03I let me say this. What's even funner though, like you want to play the trad wife stuff? I can still play the trad wife stuff with Joe anytime I want. It's called role playing. There's a whole section of kink. Yeah. Like that is still available, but in actually adult, consensual, negotiated ways where you get to at the end of that role play not be a trad wife anymore. Yeah, you don't get to just okay, cut, scene's over, we get to go back now. No, you get to experience that day in, day out. Yeah. And that this I feel like the whole episode was just to kind of like break through that that wall, that illusionary wall that I think we as women in our DNA often live with and think is real because it's been passed down from the trauma of our mothers and our grandmothers and our great-grandmothers who did not have the rights or the freedoms or the opportunities to be able to leave and actually survive without a marriage.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And the the gorgeousness of 2025 here in America at the moment is that is not the case. And fuck no, will we be going back?
SPEAKER_04We're not going back. No.
SPEAKER_02No. Oh my god. I adore you.
SPEAKER_03I adore you too. And we adore all of you. Our gorgeous listeners.
SPEAKER_04Yes. What a belief in your strength. You are stronger than you think you are. Yes.
SPEAKER_03And you are spicy and little badasses. A little clinky. Totally. Totally. And we welcome that. This is this will always be a space where the full expression of ourselves is welcome. Um, yeah, I am so so grateful to now have the community as a space where we actually can hang out all together and talk about these things. So if that's something you've been being called to, we now have Alex. So for those of you that don't know, my personal assistant.
SPEAKER_04Tell them how they can join and get information.
SPEAKER_03My personal assistant is actually Quinn's oldest daughter. And she is fucking amazing. Um, and we actually have switched our interview process now, where she is doing the interviews, and I'm in love with it. I'm actually kind of obsessed. She uh does the interviews, records them, and then I get to watch them later.
SPEAKER_04And from there, don't know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So the interview when you go to sign up.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Because we want it to be really a safe container, right?
SPEAKER_03Exactly. And that's one of the things that's, you know, that was the most important when I was creating up the community was how do we make this a place where we keep it really, really safe? You know, where everybody, because this is vulnerable, authentic stuff to be talking about. You know, you and I, we have the privilege of being divorced. So we can just get on a podcast and be like, hell yeah, motherfuck, motherfuckers, this is what I'm doing. And I really love that. Yeah. But for a lot of you, that's not the case. You're still in marriages, you're still navigating those things. So uh yeah, we have an application process. There's an NDA and an end user agreement that have to be signed before. But in the application, it's just a 15-minute call with Alex where she walks you through various questions. Some of those look like, you know, how do you find the community? Why is it the best fit for you? What kind of support are you most needing? What does it mean to be in a community that's got this sacred confidentiality element to it? Like this is your moment to really get to, you know, convey to me who you are, why you want to be in this community. And I reserve the right, which is so beautiful, to select who I feel is actually a good fit for it or not. And if you do end up getting to come in, you know, I send over an email and then you're onboarded by Alex. And we actually had um a gorgeous new community member join um this week over in, I believe she's in France. Yes. Yes. She we actually she knew a mutual coaching friend of mine and Quinn's from way back when.
SPEAKER_04Oh my God.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. So really, really magical um getting to have that space and having these, we have these intimacy chats every month, and I love them because you know, we even have like a section now in the community that's called the bag, where we share like our favorite sex toys and because we need all of us want this education. This is, you know, when when uh the we came up with that title of the episode, right? The whole, you know, the sex talk you're never supposed to hear. That's what we wanted this to be. And that's what those intimacy chats are. They're a space, a radical space where women get to be adults and talk about whatever they want.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03With without feeling like, you know, your dad or your religion or your husband, your parental husband is over there telling you what you can and can't think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, it's a really amazing space. On the um, on the show notes, I'm gonna have Alex link your podcast from last week because that sounds amazing. Okay. The one, what was it all about again?
SPEAKER_04It was like it was about um the female orgasms. I don't remember the the title. It was something like get yourself off, get your life back, or something like that.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god.
SPEAKER_04Hashtag my new Yeah, vitamin O, get yourself off, get your life back. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Hell yes.
SPEAKER_04Oof, yeah, oof.
SPEAKER_03So I'll attach that in the show notes. Yeah, I loved you, you know, mentioning for those women that are looking for more community that might be post-divorce. This is an option in the community. We've found that it's just a beautiful space for everybody. And of course, you are taking on individual clients as well, right?
SPEAKER_04For a few more months at least. My my schedule changes as I head deeper into nursing school. But for now, come get it. What a babe. Come get it. Join the community because don't you have a code or something?
SPEAKER_03Yes. They can just text um stay or go community to 33777. That's the easiest way. It brings you straight to the landing page. And then from there, there'll be a link that they can schedule for the interview. So we've made it super quick and easy, which is not what we want your sex to be like. No. We want it to be easy, but yeah, exactly. Mix that in occasionally with the right partner. You can have every single different buffet. It's a buffet, all the things. I love you, Quinn. Thank you for this amazing episode today.
SPEAKER_04Oh, I love you right back, B.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was so needed. All right, everyone. We'll see you all next week. Bye-bye.